Some ANC members, frustrated at the non-racialism of the Freedom Charter (which the ANC and its allies had accepted), left and formed the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959. It was the PAC that led a peaceful protest to Sharpeville police station on 21 March 1960. The march was intended as a protest against the pass laws. The entire crowd was going to hand in their passes, which would mean the police would have to arrest them all. This was part of co-ordinated action: there were to be other similar marches around the country. The aim of the marches was to flood the jails. Sending pass offenders to jail was a key part of how Apartheid was enforced. This would have meant the government could no longer enforce pass laws across the whole black population because it would not be able to imprison more people who broke the laws.

However, the police shot into the crowd, killing 69 and injuring 180 people. In response, the government banned the major black struggle organisations – the ANC, PAC and Communist Party – and declared a State of Emergency, which gave special powers to the police and army to crush resistance and protest. The struggle was forced underground. Because peaceful protest was no longer legally possible, and was met with violence from the state, the ANC and PAC both took to armed struggle. They each formed military wings: uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and Poqo, respectively. MK attacked and sabotaged a number of government operations, but in 1963 the police captured much of the ANC/MK leadership at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, together with incriminating documents on possible plans for guerrilla warfare. Although the accused leaders argued in court that they were fighting against unjust laws which had not been passed with the consent of the majority, they were found guilty of sabotage and conspiracy. By 1964 they were in jail.

While the ANC and PAC survived, neither of them were as influential within South Africa during the 1960s as they had been in the years leading up to the Sharpeville massacre. There were a few reasons for this. It was now illegal to operate openly. Important leaders were in prison, and many others had left the country to live in exile. The ANC and MK had set up headquarters and military bases in other countries, but both were relatively weak in the 1960s. They operated from Tanzania and Zambia, but those countries were far away from South Africa. Many of the countries around South Africa were still European colonies in the 1960s and so were still friendly to the Apartheid regime. This meant it was difficult for MK to travel through those countries to reach South Africa. It was only after the Morogoro Conference in 1969 that MK became more active again.

Meanwhile, the Apartheid Government was busy tightening its grip on power and cracking down on people who criticised it. It controlled a lot of the media, and gave the police a huge amount of power, including allowing them to detain someone (keep them in prison) for a long time without having to charge them with any wrongdoing. This was a way of criminalising people, and the struggle, without evidence. Individual people could also be banned, which meant they were not allowed to appear in public, meet with more than one person at a time, travel, or have anything they wrote or said published or quoted. Again, this served to stop “troublemakers” from organising or having a widespread effect. More and more people were detained or banned. Also, in the 1960s the first political prisoners were killed in police custody. The Apartheid Government was at the height of its powers.

Over time people became scared to speak out, given the serious consequences. Besides, there was another reason that protest died down during the 1960s: South Africa’s economy was one of the fastest growing in the world. The gold price was high and industries were expanding. While this did not create a freer or more open society, and the wealth generated was not shared justly, it did mean that there was more employment available, and the greater demand for labour meant relatively higher wages. So despite a racist, oppressive government, there were some ways in which black South Africans’ lives improved during the 1960s. People were unhappy, but their leaders were in jail and the costs of speaking out were clear. Mass resistance waited for a new generation.